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JNKNOWN DEAD 



A Irroratum Say Atorraa 



By JOHN EDGAR JOHNSON 
■i 

Capt. & A. Q. M., U. S. V. 



PRINTED BY THE W. R. C, G. A. R. 
LITTLETON, N. H. 



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I take great pleasure in dedicating this Decora- 
tion Day address to my fellow citizen 

GEORGE H. TILTON, Esq. 

to whose patriotism and munificence the town of 
Littleton, N. H., is indebted for one of the most 
impressive Soldiers' Monuments I have ever seen. 

John Edgar Johnson. 



Cbe Unknown Dead. 



The leading- purpose for which the 
Grand Army was organized, as set 
i forth in its first prospectus, was the 
annual decoration of the graves of 
Union Soldiers. No such organization 
had ever existed before, or could have 
existed before, for the simple reason 
that nowhere in history is there any 
record of soldiers having been carefully 
buried in separate graves, with head- 
stones to mark them, until the United 
States Government made such, provi- 
sion for its fallen heroes in the War for 
the Union. All the soldiers of Alex- 
ander the Great; all the soldiers of Cse- 
sar; all of those of Charlemagne, and of 
Napoleon were buried in unknown 
graves. Three thousand of General 
Washington's soldiers died and were 
buried that winter at Valley Forge, but 
only two graves are now pointed out 
there, and one of these is of a commis- 
sioned officer and the other is of a dog. 
The round globe itself is a vast mauso- 



leiun to the Unknown Dead — and old 
ocean is another. 

Bnt at the close of our Civil War the 
National Government not only gath- 
ered upon the battlefields of the South 
the remains of all Northern soldiers 
that could be identified, and had them 
re-interred in various cemeteries rever- 
ently set apart for that purpose, but it 
alsd erected in the great cemetery at 
Arlington Heights, near Washington, a 
profoundly impressive monument to 
" The Unknown Dead," beneath which 
lie buried the miscellaneous remains, 
impossible of identification, of a great 
number of those who fell fighting for 
liberty and their native land. 

I suppose it was that Memorial which 
suggested so many of a like character 
all over the country. Visitors at 
Arlington invariably stand with bowed 
head beside it, and the tears of a sym- 
pathetic nation have fallen here as 
scarcely anywhere else on the continent. 
It appeals to the pity and the pathos 
and the patriotism of the Nation. 

And now I venture to call attention 



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to a distinction, not too fine perhaps, 
which may he drawn between kk name- 
Less graves " and " unknown dead." 

Uncertainty attaches itself more par- 
ticularly to the living than it docs to the 
dead. Death is revelation. At deal!; 
the scales drop from our eyes. We 
leave our death-mask behind us when 
we pass out of the body. Yonder we 
stand exposed and confessed to our- 
selves, to our fellow-men and to our 
( Yeator. 

We are sometimes asked if we believe 
we shall recognize our friends in an- 
other world. Why we are never sure of 
them until we get there. 

A monument to an "Unknown 
God," or to "Unknown Friends," I 
can understand, but a monument to the 
" Unknown Dead " is a misnomer. 
What does it signify whether the dead 
are unknown to us or not. The sun in 
the heavens is unknown to a mole in 
yonr garden. Here we see through a 
glass darkly; yonder they see face to 
faee. Here we know in part; there they 
know even ;i> thev are known. The 



things we now see are fleeting shadows; 
the things seen beyond the veil are the 
substantial facts and eternal verities of 
the universe. 

We talk much, for instance, about 
the Grand Army. Where is it? Is 
this the Grand Army; this corporal's 
guard of old men who once a year 
feebly grope their way to the graves of 
their comrades all over the country to 
decorate them with flowers ? Ah, no ! 
They are the Kear Guard of a great 
host who have marched on ahead. The 
Grand Army has passed over. It has 
forded the river and pitched its tents on 
the grand camping grounds beyond the 
grave. 

There is a pious legend of an old 
monk who, wasted by fasting, sought 
the chapel of his monastery one day 
late in Lent, and there, with others, en- 
gaged in meditations. The walls of the 
chapel were covered with frescoes illus- 
trating its history from its foundation 
centuries before. Among the figures 
there were not a few of those who had 



fought the good fight of faith and pur- 
chased the halo of the saint. 

Overcome by his austerities, the aged 
man half fainted; passed, in fact, into 
the state of coma. He seemed to him- 
self to be disembodied. He saw his own 
figure and those of his companions 
around him, like so many marble 
statues fixed and lifeless, while the fres- 
coed images on the walls appeared to be 
moving about and conversing with one 
another. 

He was soon discovered in his swoon, 
and carried to his cell, where he was 
resuscitated. 

Now on Decoration Day old soldiers 
" dream dreams and see visions." 
Everything inverts itself. The earth 
mirrors itself in the skies. The Grand 
Army is on high, looking down upon us. 
They are the living heroes, and we are 
the lifeless figures on the ground. 

When, from time to time, the roll is 
called up yonder, they who are there 
are reckoned " present." We who are 
here are " absent " or " missing." or, 
perchance, we may be written down as 



of whereabouts unknown or as unac- 
counted for. 

But we, too, are moving onward and 
upward. We shall soon join the main 
column. 

And what a day it will be over there 
when the " last survivor," as we lifeless 
mortals sometimes foolishly phrase it, 
shall cross over, ascend the bank on 
the other side, and close the long- roll 
call with his " J I err! " 

Will it be in the feeble squeaking 
voice of an old man — a Veteran — or 
will it be in trumpet tones, echoing and 
re-echoing along all the arches of the 
universe \ 

I love to think of this " last man," 
clad once more in immortal youth, 
mounting up on high, leading captivity 
captive, falling into line and filling the 
last gap in the serried ranks of the re- 
united Union Army. That will be a 
Reunion and Review the glory of 
which is beyond the power of the imag- 
ination to conceive. 

What a scene it will be ! All heaven 
will be there to behold it. Tn the fore- 






-round will stand Father Abraham 
waiting to clasp this last man by the 
hand. 

General Grant will be there, and the 
" silent man " will find his tongue, at 
last and shout " Hosannah! " General 
Sherman will be there — Old Tecnmseh 
— who could talk almost as well as he 
could fight. He will " make a few re- 
marks, " no doubt. General Sheridan 
will be there— " Fighting Phil "—half 
horse and half man; as near a centaur 
as anything ever was. 

General Custer will be there. How 
well we remember him at the Great 
Review at Washington at the close of 
the war. As he approached the grand- 
stand his horse ran away with him — 
back along the lines. He conquered it, 
and when he came up again (his long, 
yellow hair streaming over his shoul- 
ders) and saluted the President and the 
rest of the reviewing officers, what a 
yell rent the air from that vast multi- 
tude. I can hear it now. although it is 
many a day since I last heard even the 
roll of heaven's artillery in a thunder- 



storm. That was, indeed the Grand 
Army. 

But as the ranks thin here they swell 
yonder, and the Final Review and Re- 
union is not far distant. 
^ How the banners will wave on that 
great day ! How the flags will flutter I 
How the drums will roll! How the 
fifes will shriek! How the bands will 
play " When Johnnie Comes Marching 
Home " ! 

Then " the peace which passeth all 
understanding " will settle down upon 
the universe. 

" The war drums will throb no longer 
and the battleflags will be furled." 
There will be no more death and no 
more darkness, but all will be life and 
light unending. 

We shall see eye to eye finally and 
forever; and there will be no " Un- 
known Dead," for we shall all have 
arrived, at last, in " The Land of the 
Living." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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